Anxiety and Invega

Saw Pdoc. She was like “so you were in. the hospital…”. No ****ing kidding! Is this new news to you just this very moment? She increased my invega to 3 mg to help with the voices. I was feeling spacey on the way back from my appointment driving. Right now I’m cold and in a sweatshirt jeans and under a blanket. I just felt like Pdoc was unprepared for my appointment. Makes me upset.

I just took my night meds- including the higher dose of invega- 15 minutes ago. Pdoc said to take it 1 hour before I want to sleep. That was at 8. I haven’t noticed that I get tired an hour after I take it.

I texted my case manager about 15 minutes ago that I can’t stand the akathisia so I’m going off the invega. Voices be damned! She hasn’t replied but I don’t expect her to. I also added “that’s if the akathisia isn’t permanent already…”

That sucks, @Moose72

🫂

Yeah I know. Case manager got back to me. Said pnurse is running out of ways to fix me. Pray that she can pull a rabbit out of her hat!

Have you been on clozaril? I am pretty sure it has a pretty low risk for akathesia or other EPS symptoms and once you get in the routine of blood draws it's a pretty easy med.

No no clozaril. I thought it was a last ditch med?

I had a rare bad reaction to clozaril. Extreme water retention, swelling, edema in my ankles, respiratory problems.... my psychiatrist said he'd never seen anything like it! And he's pretty much retired right now and July is his last month. Not to mention the DROOLING. I had a DROOL towel at night. Lol. And all the blood draws... ugh. It worked well though. Made me nice and fat and jolly. But was overall a miserable experience for me. Had to abruptly stop it, went through withdrawal, and THAT was a miserable experience... the anxiety! Omg!

Obviously everyone is different though. And like I said, I had a very, VERY rare bad reaction to it. So I think it's worth a shot, if you're running out of options.

What APs have you all tried?

Seroquel?
Prolixin?
Abilify?
Haldol?
Latuda?

I'm trying to think of any others I've tried... Abilify gave me akathisia, Haldol worked great for seven years but then started giving me muscle rigidity and stopped working, and prolixin just worked me up and made me anxious and I hated it. It was like an evil Haldol. I was on latuda for like a day and just remember it making me feel really high. Right now I'm on seroquel, which is working great (no delusions or hallucinations), and 50mg of loxapine, but I know you were just on loxapine and it didn't work out for you.

Anyway, meds are frustrating!

Has your akathisia gone away?

It is but if you're running out of options and especially if you are running out of options that don't cause akathesia/EPS it might be time to consider it. It is annoying the first year to get frequent blood draws but after that time it's just once a month. The main side effects I've had from it are drooling at night and I wear an incontinence pad at night because every so often I sleep too deeply and wake up realizing that I'm peeing. (I have overactive bladder which probably makes this one worse for me than usual). Otherwise it's a little sedating but I've needed other meds for sleep with it so it's not very sedating for me. Weight gain was a problem initially but I started metformin and that controlled it.

I've been on it 8 years and I'm really glad. I don't know if you're there yet but if you're running out of meds it might be worth a shot.

Tried all those plus others except prolixin. Don’t want bad anxiety! Still having. akathisia. I hope my breathing is ok while I’m on my trip. Been having problems with my Cpap. Feeling suffocated.

I didn't read all the comments, so excuse me if someone has already said this. But I'm on 3 mgs of invega and it has caused eps symptoms for me as well. When I get anxious, my lip kind of rolls in my mouth and I get horrible tremors.

I'm on 3 mgs of cogentin and 40 mgs of prpinol I spelled that wrong sorry. But they do help. Ubut something that is the most bothersome is the blurred vision from the cogentin causes that.

I stay on it bc it has taken away my period and I have really heavy periods and a lot of cramps. I have a lot going on in my personal life. Hope this helped you!

I have completely stopped the invega. Still dealing with TD. It can get bad but last night I slept thank god. Right now I don’t care what Pdoc says about going off. I much prefer the voices!

Don't blame you, @Moose72. I hope the TD goes away soon!

Me too. It still hasn’t. Makes it hard to type and do anything really!

I finally broke down and called the after hours line at my Pdoc office. The nurse I spoke to said while the tremors are no fun it’s not and emergency. She contacted my Pdoc, case manager and the RN that works with them. They are supposed to call me tomorrow. The nurse also said that since I haven’t been on the invega that long that the akathesia should reverse itself.

I typed this the other day and the entire post went POOF so I'll try again.

I looked it up and clozaril and seroquel are the best meds for not having akathesia/EPS. They are both anitcholinergics and so they have the protection that cogentin, an anticholinergic, gives if you need treatment with that on other meds. Based on my own experience I'd say they are stronger anticholinergics than cogentin but without some of the side effects of cogentin (I'm a little foggy now on what those were as I haven't taken it in many years).


I know for me the combination of those 2 meds has made me better than anything else ever has and not a hint of anything bad. My pdoc didn't want to put me on 1st generation meds because I'd had so much trouble with EPS/akathesia on other 2nd generation meds so that's really good.

Anyway, just where my trajn of thoughts was going the other day.

Seroquel is a good medication, although some people may stop taking it without medical advice because it is very sedating and can cause clouded thinking. I never had to deal with this condition, so it is one of the few medications I am not on, but I have seen many people who were prescribed it professionally. I used to write a 30 or 90-day supply of it for them until they could see a psychiatrist if they needed it. Clozaril is also effective; I saw many people who were on that too.

Anxiety is driving my bus. I need a good therapist. Not meds. Learned a lot tonight from my sisters friend.

Saw Pdoc today. She said I never should’ve been taken off propranolol at the hospital. Put me back on. Still on Ingrezza but I dunno if it’s working. Also switched me from Ativan to Klonopin. Said it lasts longer. I took a good nap with no bouncing. Wants my on Vraylar in two weeks when I go back.

Oh yeah I’ve been off invega. For over two weeks.

Propranolol not working!

I've been on 3 mgs of invega. When I was in the hospital, that psychiatrist put me on 9mgs. I was doing really good on it, no side effects. But then I forgot to call it in and it was out of stock.

So I I found some extra old 3 mgs. I took them and stated having really bad tremors and my lip on one side kind of curls in. So I went down to just 3 mgs and I still have tremors and my lip still curls in.

For the tremors I take propononal and cogentin. But it sucks bc the cogentin causes blurred vision for me so I can't drive at night. And it's hard to see when it snows or rains.

It has completely taken my period away. I do need to get on a different antipsychotic. But my life is really stressful so if and when my life calms down I'm just going to deal with the side effects. But I haven't found that it's causes anxiety.

I agree with Rainbow that Seroquel and Clozapine are the best no-EPS antipsychotics. The only other AP I've been on that DIDN'T cause EPS was Zyprexa (and I've been on practically all of them except some first gens, Rexulti, and Caplyta).

Be aware though that with the anticholingeric effect also comes risk of urinary retention. I had that issue with cogentin and some other APs combined, but not with the three mentioned above without the cogentin.

@Moose72

Have you ever tried Artane? I was on that for awhile when they had me on the dreaded prolixin. It worked better for me than cogentin, which didn't work at all and just gave me blurred vision.

I’ve got Covid! Cough and stuffy nose. Went to urgent care yesterday. Never had it before.